Hidden Within Her
by thistledot
Summary: Set a few years after Sakura has successfully transformed all Clow cards into Sakura cards, her troubles with her cards, however, have not exactly ended. In the midst of her own personal problems, she faces another that she had not anticipated.
1. Return to Tomoeda

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Everything happens a few years after the series, so it refers back to anime and manga events. Had fun writing this because I was all the while watching the series and reading the manga. )   
Disclaimer: I don't own CCS, Clamp does. And boy, are they lucky.

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CHAPTER 1 

"Daidouji-san? Did something happen?" 

"Li-kun, Sakura has been down with fever three days now...she's at the hospital…but they don't know what's wrong with her…" 

"Why didn't you call me right away?" He asked, sounding more angry than worried. 

"At first it seemed nothing serious...and...but...Kero-chan tells me that it might have something to do with the cards - please come." 

"I will...Daidouji-san, can you do something for me?" 

"Yes?" 

"Please ask Hiragizawa-san to go, too." 

After putting the receiver down, he started packing. It seems that he'll be back in Tomoeda earlier than he planned. 

  
Fujitaka remembered when he promised not to cry after Nadeshiko passed away. Though it was a farfetched thought, he could not help it but be disturbed that what was presently happening to his daughter resembled the past. 

Two days after that day, Sakura will be starting her junior year at Seijou High. She was still her class's forerunner in athletics and she still fumbled over math assignments. 

She did not inherit her mother's long locks, only the cheer in her eyes and the shape of her ears. Her body was no longer that of a child's. She noticed that herself when she realized that her roller blades began to hurt her feet. 

The nurse came in to clean up her lunch tray. It was untouched. 

The room was pleasantly cool, yet the sides of her face were moist from the heat of her fever. Her mouth was slightly open, and her hair was disheveled by the tosses and turns of the previous night. She had not yet awakened since last night. 

Touya and Yukito arrived just as the nurse went out. They had just been from a short trip to the Tsukimine Shrine. On the way to the hospital, Yukito bought some pastry to eat and a few sweet cakes for Sakura. 

"I'll skip this afternoon's work to watch her." Touya murmured as he set his bag down on the floor. Fujitaka looked up at him. During the past few days they both had the same thing in their minds. This was the first time that she had a fever for so long. 

"She'll be fine." Touya placed a hand on his shoulder. 

"I can stay for tonight - I want to help in anyway I can." Yukito knew that the two had been missing work to stay with her. "We'll be alright…I already have something for us to eat, too…" He smiled. 

On the table beside the window, Kerberos kept still. 

An hour passed. Touya and Fujitaka left after having agreed on the schedule for the next day. As soon as they left, Yukito stood up to glance at the window. _I wonder how Sakura-chan will react when she sees me?_

He stared blankly out onto the rooftops, felt an ache on his temple, and Yue appeared. 

Kerberos heaved a sigh as he stretched his muscles. "Finally I can move! But I didn't call you, Yue-san." 

"She called me." Yue turned around to Sakura. "I had been hearing her call me even while the others were here." 

"What? How come I don't hear her?" Kero wondered out loud. 

She hardly moved.

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Sorry if the story seems to be slow-paced...eheheh. 


	2. Awakened

CHAPTER 2 

"Sakura-chan! I'm so happy you're awake!" Kero flew over to where Yukito placed his sweet cakes. He grabbed one for Sakura and another for himself. 

She looked up and reached her hands out to Kero to hug him. She had finally gotten used to seeing Yue out of nowhere from time to time. 

"The nurses will come in..." were her first words. 

"I will be able to sense them before they do..." Yue replied as he sat back on the seat beside the bed. 

She remembered that she was hungry. She wanted noodles but all there was were baked pastries with ham-and-potato fillings and sweet cakes. 

Yukito bought her sweet cakes every now and then. In the mornings, while she hurried to school, she would find a small box with two or three cakes on her study table. Sometimes, she would find leftover crumbs - Kero ate some while she slept. At one time, midway in her sophomore year, she planned to bake some cookies in return for the cakes. While she was choosing among a set of metal pastry shapes, she suddenly realized that the gesture was only out of politeness, even habit, and that she was not happy going about making her gift. However, she had not thought about all this while she was mixing the batter. She decided to give the cookies to Tomoyo instead. 

In her dream (because she dreamt often when she was in bad health), she and Yukito had become intimate. He would walk her to class every morning, and just before she entered the gates, they would trade lunches they made for each other. Sakura prepared every kind of dish imaginable. Yukito prepared only sweet cakes. 

After his third cake, Kero forgot everything else and fell contentedly asleep while he murmured something about a blissful confectionary land of gigantic chocolates, mint, cream-coated strawberries, and such. 

It was not an unusual dream for her. In another version, she and Yukito were happily married. However, every time her husband came home, he would remove his shoes and throw them at her. It was not at all his fault. She was as small as an ant and so he did not know that he was hurting her. To console her, he always brought home some sweet cakes. 

These childish dreams bothered her occasionally during her high school days. Needless to say, time had not erased her feelings for her brother's friend. The "hanyan" for him was long gone though; it was now regret, anxiety, and some infrequent loneliness. Her father noticed it clearly. 

"Why were you calling me?" Yue asked. 

"I was having a dream...and Yukito-san was there..." Her eyes started to familiarize itself with the room. "...why am I having this fever now? Classes will start soon..." 

While Yue looked at her, he realized a few years had already gone by. He did not notice time through his body - he was unchanged in body and demeanor. On the contrary, his mistress had changed. She had traded her whimsical youth for a more graceful, reserved maturity. He was not used to seeing her so serious. He also noticed that she was, for some time now, not in her best self. He had figured out correctly that she had not yet properly dealt with her feelings with his disguised self. The past always catches up to you and wastes the hours of your days. 

He observed her mistress mostly while Yukito was conscious and had chance meetings with Sakura. 

The cards had been caught and bore the writing of her name. No longer was Tomoeda visited by its supernatural powers by surprise. She used it more to bring excitement to other's lives rather than to catch other cards. Much like the time she produced a rainbow for Grandpa Amamiya using Watery. 

Yue and Kerberos appeared in their true forms occasionally, even though Sakura had enough strength to support their existence in their true forms for as long as she lived. It was awkward, however, for Sakura to have them with their wings all around the small Kinomoto residence. They agreed to live as before - Kerberos lived in her room and Yue lived inside Yukito. 

"Was I really calling out for you? Maybe I was having trouble in my dream...Kero-chan used to hear the voices in my dream, too." She did not want to worry him that much. 

Though Yukito and Yue are one in the same person, she had managed, in her mind, to separate the two identities. It came to a point, sometime beginning her first year in Seijou High, that she decided that it was necessary to do this. However, it still passed her mind that she was talking to Yukito whenever Yue came to where she was. 

"Yue-san...I want to say something..." She reached out her left arm towards him. 

He moved closer, his face next to her cheek. While he waited, he did not hear words, only her heavy breathing. She fell back asleep. 

He could not help but see her as the child he protected in times of danger, yet his own life depended so much on her. She was, all along, saving her guardians from nonexistence. 

He wished that she would become happier or at least that he would understand her confusion. 

He wondered if he could lightly kiss her on her forehead without startling her. The coldness from the moon might even bring down her fever. 


	3. Pauses in an Afternoon

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This chapter will be...er...a little longer...heheh. Sorry to all those who like it fast paced.

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CHAPTER 3 

"Daidouji-san, thank you for the ride…will they be alright outside?" Shaoran was referring to her four lady bodyguards waiting behind the door to his apartment. 

"Oh, that's no problem…Wei-sama no longer accompanies you?" 

"He's retired comfortably with my family - besides, I have to learn how to go about things by myself…" Shaoran grinned as he worried a bit about how he made their tea. 

"…er…I see that you still think the same of Sakura…" She said as she carefully set her cup back on the table. 

Tomoyo and Shaoran had been conversing over a cup of tea at Shaoran's apartment. His luggage was still standing beside his feet. He had the same firm look in his eyes. His thick eyebrows made him look rougher than he was. 

They went to his apartment right after they accompanied Sakura to her home. She was suddenly discharged from the hospital that morning because her fever subsided and nothing wrong was found with her. When they arrived, Touya had gone out to pay the hospital bill and Yukito, still in clothes he wore the day before, was packing up Sakura's things. 

"Oh…you both came in a bit too late, she was awake a while ago…I guess she's still a bit exhausted now…" Yukito told them. He held Kerberos by the arm. 

Yukito stretched out his arms. "I need a bath…" He muttered as he laughed by himself. 

When it was time to leave, Touya gently ruffled her hair. "Kaijou, wake up…it's time to go." 

"hrrm…?" She was too weak to get mad. Her back was sore all over. 

She rubbed her eyes, moved her head to the side, and smiled when she saw Tomoyo standing in front of the door to her room. 

"You were so worried about me, weren't you?" She slowly moved up so that her legs hung from the bed and her feet nearly touched the floor. She was in her white duster (with a bunny print) that now bore the smell of the hospital sheets. 

"Everyone was worried about you -- Li-kun has come back from Hong Kong just to see you." 

"Hoe?" She muttered softly as her eyes met Shaoran's. He was standing a feet behind Yukito. He was now nearly as tall as the snow-rabbit. "Oto-san?" She remembered, as she looked back at her brother. 

"He's at his presentation - he wanted to come." 

Touya was about to carry her on his back like he used to. He waited for her arms to cling to his shoulders. 

"Onii-chan! I think I'm too old for this…" She blurted out with an embarrassed look. Tomoyo giggled and everyone else followed. Shaoran, on the other hand, was lost in some thought and stayed quiet. 

Shaoran came back with a refilled teapot and gently set it on the table. "What makes you say that?" 

"While she slept in the car…you still looked at her with those very same kind eyes." Tomoyo replied knowingly. "I'm dropping by later to visit Sakura-chan…do you want to come?" She continued. 

"Um…I have something to attend to…this afternoon…" He replied, glancing down at his watch. 

"I see…visit her when you have the chance…I'm sure she will find it pleasant to see you again after a long time…" 

"Daidouji-san, please don't tell her yet about…" 

"Oh, I won't...she'll worry too much if she does...but she'll find out anyway…" Tomoyo stared into the glass sliding door leading to the balcony behind Shaoran. She had more reason to worry now.   


- - - 

  
"…house chores, house chores - sweep the floor, water the flowers, change the sheets..." It went in broken notes and trailed off into sounds a block away from the Kinomoto residence. 

"Shouldn't you be resting?" Kero flew alongside Sakura. She had just started vacuuming their living room when she realized that, strangely, the task tired her immediately. She decided to move on to sweeping the leaves left forlorn and scattered on their driveway. The cool of the breeze outside will keep her working. 

She noticed that their schedule whiteboard was unusually blank, except for a few pentel marks near the bottom corner which did not mean much. _She had them rattled didn't she?_

On the other hand, the plates and dining utensils were clean. Apparently, nobody ate dinner at home during the past few days. 

"…the house is in a mess - what will they do without me?" She said in sarcasm. She continued with an enumeration of various tasks around the house which were left unaccomplished during her absence. 

Before she could finish, Kero hopped onto her nose. "That's just so like you! I missed you Sakura-chan!" They forgot altogether that Kerberos was supposedly an inanimate stuffed toy. 

Sakura had just squirted Kero with water (she was in "water the flowers" now) when a luxury car purred across their open gate. 

Tomoyo got out of the car. "I'm staying." 

With no more being said after that, Sakura dropped the spray bottle and embraced her. Some unexpected tears crept up in the window sills of her eyes. 

A few months ago, Tomoyo planned to transfer to a different high school outside Tomoeda. She seriously considered taking up fashion design and a good design institution was located there. She thought that it would be practical to start her high school in the same institution for her to easily get into the college course in the future. 

"Why?" 

"Ah, that we can talk about over some snacks…" Tomoyo replied as she removed her scarf from her neck. She almost had Nadeshiko's tresses now. 

"Er, Tomoyo-san - we don't have food in the house right now." 

"…then let's have some chilled milk tea at a café?" 

"Great! I'll quickly change first…" She replied as she hurried towards their doorway. 

Kerberos mounted the spray bottle on his back. Tomoyo took it from him, seeing how it gave him a hard time. 

"Thank you for doing that for Sakura." Kero said. 

"She is my friend, Kero-chan." She replied quietly with a faint smile on her lips. 

Inside her room, Sakura was looking at herself in a plain blue sundress on the closet mirror. She hastily pinned some floating strands of her bangs with a hairclip. She was about to slip into some sandals when she noticed a loose thread sticking out among the piping of the hem of her dress. 

She kept a scissor in her topmost drawer. She remembered that she was making Tomoyo wait downstairs. 

"I can't -- huh? The cards are not here…" The cards were always inside the topmost drawer. 

She pulled open the rest of her drawers. 

Note books. Yarn balls. Sets of stationary. No cards. But the cards were _always_ inside the topmost drawer. She felt a tingling dread in her chest. 


End file.
